Direct health care charges for new-onset pediatric epilepsy

Youth with epilepsy and their families experience considerable burdens, including behavioral health symptoms, social isolation, learning problems, difficulties adjusting to their illness, and daily management of epilepsy.1,2 Rising health care costs and policy changes at the national and state level have necessitated a closer look at another source of burden—health care costs associated with epilepsy. For example, Yoon et al.3 examined medical expenditures from 1996 to 2004 and revealed that annual expenditures for youth with epilepsy (n = 770) were $6,379, compared to $1,032 for youth without epilepsy. Cramer et al.4 examined a 2007–2009 claims database of 2,127 children <12 years old with epilepsy and found that youth with uncontrolled epilepsy (those prescribed additional antiepileptic drugs [AEDs] in the past year) encountered more hospitalizations (30.1% vs 12.0%) and greater overall ($30,343 vs $18,206) and epilepsy-related ($16,894 vs $7,979) costs than youth with stable epilepsy (same AEDs for the past year). Epilepsy charges per se accounted for a little less than half of the overall costs, suggesting that other factors add considerably to the cost of providing care for youth with epilepsy.4